Vulnerabilities: an underutilized mechanism?

[CovertOps]

So, Green Slime is vulnerable to both Radiant and Fire. So if an attack has both keywords (Radiant and Fire), does the Green Slime take 10 additional damage (+5 from Radiant and +5 from Fire)?

I believe that is correct.

 

[sfedi]

I think not. You only deal the best of the vulnerabilities damage, in this case, 5.

 

[DracoSuave]

I think not. You only deal the best of the vulnerabilities damage, in this case, 5.

No, that's just the rule for having two vulnerabilities of the same type.

In the case of different vulnerabilities, they are different abilities and both can activate off the same attack.

 

[Camelot]

I'm not sure. The updated resistance rules clarify how to deal with multi-typed attacks, but vulnerabilities were not clarified such. It would seem to me that sfedi would be right, with the highest vulnerability applying only. This seems more in line with the resistance rules, and is more sensible (giving the attacker double extra damage on an attack is in no way balanced, but one vulnerability would be so, since it was already there in the first place).

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Well, as mentioned initially, the 'problem' I'm trying to solve is that powers dealing untyped damage are generally superior to powers dealing energy type damage.

As has been mentioned this is also kind of a reversal of how things were in 3e. In 4e the martial power source is the swiss army knife since it reliably damages everything equally.

What this ultimately means is that pcs using other power sources pay for their versatility by having encounters that become more difficult for them unless they restrict themselves to powers dealing untyped damage. And there is currently no 'pay-off' because they won't have any encounters in which it's to their advantage that they picked a variety of energy types (because there are too few monsters with vulnerabilities).

I don't like it that there is a single best solution to everything (excluding undead). I want to encourage the use of a variety of energy types. Reducing grind is a secondary goal.

The problem is that you're kind of comparing apples to oranges. There are no monsters with a vulnerability to untyped damage, it's just that there's not much resistance to it. As such, saying that typed damage needs to be damage by sweeping vulnerabilities won't necessarily fix anything, because then typed damage will become more powerful than untyped.

Secondly, you have to look at the types of powers involved. My Fighter doesn't have a ranged Burst 2 power that does 2[W] to all creatures in the burst...but the Wizard does. It's called Shock Sphere. Now, since Shock Sphere has the Lightning keyword, it's possible that the Wizard using this might run into enemies that have a resistance to Lightning, and this will hamper his ability to do damage. Despite that though, Shock Sphere is still a great power and covers a massive area (and it would be Burst 3 if enlarged, at the cost of -4 to damage).

There's also a lot of ways to get around those resistances. Sorcerers have the ability to reduce certain resistances, there's a staff that converts power from acid to fire (and vice versa), and there's feats like Surging Flames that help out themed PC's who take a lot of powers of one damage type (there's also a few that give bonuses for using a Thunder power after a Lightning power and such).

Now, I'm not saying that vulnerabilities are a bad thing...but like everything else, they must be balanced. I don't think the system needs a total overhaul though, since typed damage powers have a lot of utility and can typically do more interesting things than untyped powers.

I would also be careful about tweaking monsters based on the abilities of one player, such as the example of the Rogue with a flaming weapon. If you up a creature's HP because someone has a flaming weapon (or radiant, or frost cheese, etc...) and that PC goes down, what you're left with is a party with one member down fighting a creature with a lot more HP than it should normally have...which could end rather nastily.

 

[ValhallaGH]

If you up a creature's HP because someone has a flaming weapon (or radiant, or frost cheese, etc...) and that PC goes down, what you're left with is a party with one member down fighting a creature with a lot more HP than it should normally have...which could end rather nastily.

At a minimum, it makes the fight more of a grind. And grinds are generally not a lot of fun, which defeats the whole purpose of an RPG (which is having fun).

 

[Smeelbo]

Yeah, I found vulnerabilities way under-used, to the point where you have to ask, why bother with typed damage at all as a player? My solution as a DM has been to add small vulnerabilities and resistances to many monsters that lack them. So almost all creatures with the shadow descriptor gain Vulnerable 2 Radiant, Resist 2 Necrotic. Adding a few twosies here and there (I only DM at Heroic so far) really adds flavor, and makes the players feel like their choice of energy type makes an actual difference, instead of being simply pointless.

At paragon tier, I think I'd use Vulnerable/Resist 5sies, at at epic, 10sies.

Smeelbo